Assisted Dying Bill passed by slim majority

[smallglassbottle]

https://news.sky.com/story/politics-latest-starmer-assisted-dying-trump-israel-iran-labour-12593360

This is an absolute disgrace that it's passed through the House of Commons and has been decimated by the House of Lords. What an absolute joke of a parliamentary system. All because of hand wringing what-if's. You cannot fake a terminal illness to bump off your granny as you want her money ffs.

My Dad's death from cancer still gives me nightmares 3 years on. We treat animals with more dignity than we do humans.

I completely agree. The Lords has made the best possible justification for its abolition or reform with its treatment of this bill. I’m disgusted.

Maybe if they could have been arsed to write the bill in a careful and considered way rather than on the back of a fag paper the moment they were out of the gates, then it would have done much better. But the Lords did their job properly in stopping this half arsed legislation falling upwards.

The state intervening in setting the deaths of its citizens isn't a light thing.

I suspect there will be a government that sets it as a bill, possibly Reform (who seem split 50 50, though the Express as their core vote back it) .

Maybe alongside one that returns the death penalty. You'd expect any bill drafted to be scrutinised to prevent a future Harold Shipman finding his groove or the wholesale equivalent of the Dnacpr being issued for disabled care home residents as happened in the pandemic.

But it probably will end up being introduced, spun as a cost saving measure

Exactly, ThePhantom

As mentioned before I've no objection to the concept in principle, but have plenty for this mishmash of half arsed proposals, and especially the constant chipping away of the much lauded safeguards which was noted even by MPs who originally supported the measure

Create and pass a compassionate, effective bill by all means, but only when the issues have been properly addressed and preferably via government bill and not some personal campaign by a headbanger

I do agree that it’s a disgrace that it passed through the House of Commons and we had to rely on the House of Lords
to put it to proper scrutiny

Who would have thought we have to rely on a house of Unelected representatives to do a decent job of it

Shame on Labour !

Bit insulting to the incredibly clever parliamentary draftspeople who draft the bills.

I really couldn't see what the issue with this bill was. You had to be terminally ill with a prognosis of six months. It was incredibly restrictive.

The limitation to 6 months prognosis was added after the initial draft in an effort to push it through. It was not well written.

Edit: Actually I'm wrong there, I'm mixing it up with the failed Scottish bill. The one was just hopelessly flawed in terms of safeguarding.

Whilst agreeing that the House of Commons should have scrutinised it more, as a Private Member's Bill it is not a failure of this or any other government.

@MarySueSaidBoo agree

The problem is people don't know what they don't know.
Until you have been with a loved one watching them scared and suffering until they are too drugged up to tell us how they are feeling as they slowly die!! It's horrific .
My cat won't suffer like that.

Good.

Whilst it is of course understandable why some would have wanted this, the reality is that there are far too few safeguards, and you only have to look at other countries to know with 100% certainty that this was absolutely going to be a slippery slope.

Anyone who believes that it wouldn’t be is naive.

How the assisted dying bill was drafted: A conversation with Dame Elizabeth Gardiner - Parliament Matters podcast, Episode 71 transcript https://share.google/65QL6If5MJbB2v62l

Done on a shoestring, led by thick as mince Leadbeater who frogmarched Gardiner's timetable, who was contracted on 20th October, produced a first draft on the 28th, so Leadbeater's bill could be introduced on November the 11th...Does that sound like the kind of thoughtfully considered legislation that would stand up to scrutiny when it comes to legally assisting the death of incredibly vulnerable patients and managing a fundamental change to the principles of healthcare?

Disgraceful conduct by the unelected House of Lords.

A possible safeguard that no-one seems to have considered which would cover a significant number of instances would be that you have to say when you are in good health that you wish to consider what is proposed were you to have a terminal illness. And have to re-affirm your wish at regular intervals.

That's already possible with a living will/advance directive, LlynTegid: https://www.ageuk.org.uk/information-advice/money-legal/legal-issues/advance-decisions/

Edited to add it doesn't allow for a request to be helped to die, but goes some way towards it if the refusal of anything except symptom relief is included

The horror is in having to watch your parent or partner die a horrible painful death over weeks and weeks rather than being helped to end their agonising suffering. Of course you need safeguards but terminal is terminal, it can’t be faked, and support needs to be there for those who cannot take any more pain.

Thank goodness for the HOL. It was a terrible bill. The safeguards were woefully inadequate.

Exactly this.

The supporter campaigners seem so out of touch with the reality of living in a cost of housing and cost of living crisis, and the reality of being il or old and dependent on the UK’s cut to the bone NHS, mental health and social servicesa and all the other public services that have fallen apart since Austerity from 2010 onwards.

Trump’’s wars have really set the course for terrible economies in the western world for years if not decades to come.
I thinks that’s why a lot of people can’t feel trust and can’t feel this safe to be implemented. Even if I principle it could be a relief for some terminally ill people. The risk to people who are not in the willing category is too great.

As we see in Canada which has a similar legal system the goal posts get widened and widened over time and it leaves a much bigger number of vulnerable people so much more open to subtle or non subtle coercion by states who don’t want to financially support them. Or states may be benign but in struggling economies vulnerable people can be open to guilting and manipulation by family members if this option is on the table. VAWG and DV and abuse at home of elderly people are already common and this kind of legal route is a gift to abusers.